Media Meditation #3 The Girl Effect (or lack of effectiveness)

The Girl Effect

In my Brand and Account Managment class a few weeks ago, we were talking about advertising and for some reason we were shown this video for The Girl Effect which is an organization which is trying to empower females in suffering communities. This video is all limbic and neocortex, the music is soothing and allows you to read the words and try to gage what the meaning is. It does however have very fast pacing so you stay engaged and the persuasive techniques are strong but in many ways they are avoiding the important topics, after watching this clip I still had no idea what I was supposed to do with the information.

Throughout the video it asks rhetorical questions that make you feel guilty for the world issues at hand. They also give a simple solution…a girl? Okay so they back it up with some examples on how a girl could potentially change the world, but honestly I don’t see why a boy could not do the same things. I do believe that girls should be empowered but with this video I am confused as to if they really are.

I visited the website to learn more about this project and found it somewhat more informative but it was still set up as to distract from the actual purpose by looking really cool and edgy.

Image from <http://www.girleffect.org/learn/the-big-picture >

Everything is put into black and white, they have no gray zone of how things could change, either you donate money to 12 and 13 year old girls and their lives turn out perfect. Or you don’t. And if you don’t these girls will be married off, knocked up, die in childbirth, or get AIDS and die. They use fear and group dynamic to pressure people into helping. I don’t feel strongly that this organization is really helping…

Also, there are some underlying questions of ownership- who made this organization? Nike! It is never said anywhere on the website or the videos but if you search through the About Us section of the website you can see that the Nike Foundation website is where all the real information is. If I had read that page first, I think I would support this cause so much more, but the way they are advertising makes me question their motives, it seems distracting and not very serious, when changing the world in this way is a very serious issue.

Here is another video of a Parody of their video that breaks down all the issues that the Girl Affect avoids in their original claims. I think it helps to balance the issue and should make the organization question their campaign a little more.

The Girl Effect Parody-Idiot Effect

This video shows a different side of all of the issues involved and the group that created it, http://www.corrupt.org/ has a lot of strong view points and is definitely an interesting site. I don’t agree with all their statements but I think they really do a good job of analyzing The Girl Affect message and trying to make people think more deeply about what is really going on.